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<title>Something Strange is Happening in the Back of My Head by Smooty</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29190246">Something Strange is Happening in the Back of My Head</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smooty/pseuds/Smooty'>Smooty</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Gorillaz</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Drug Use, Gen, Monsters, Psychosis</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 03:33:41</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>711</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29190246</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smooty/pseuds/Smooty</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A brief moment of lucidity through the speed-filled haze. Murdoc stumbles his way to the bathroom--takes a wrong turn and gives that Pot kid quite a fright--and positions himself in front of the mirror.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Something Strange is Happening in the Back of My Head</h2></a>
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    <p>A brief moment of lucidity through the speed-filled haze. Murdoc stumbles his way to the bathroom--takes a wrong turn and gives that Pot kid quite a fright--and positions himself in front of the mirror. The sink and tap feel too far away--too small. His face in the mirror looks both familiar and foreign, like he’s looking at a picture and not himself. There’s a dark smudge of something on his cheek--disgusting. The taps don’t work so he settles for spitting into a towel and rubbing the pilly, threadbare thing against his face roughly. When he stops, the mark is still there. Murdoc frowns.</p><p>“What the…” He scrubs again and this time the spot smears a little. “Fuckin’ shit!” Murdoc scrubs harder, and faster, until his hand is a blur in the mirror and the black stain is all over his cheek and halfway past his nose. He rubs harder, the shitty rag feeling like sandpaper against his skin. It won’t come off. </p><p>In a fit of rage he pitches the cloth to the side. It lands in the shower, where it’ll sit for another two weeks. Murdoc stares at it, at the moldy shower curtain barely hanging on to the rod. None of whatever is on his face is on the cloth. He turns back to the mirror.</p><p>It's all over now. Black, the consistency of tar and twice as sticky. He can’t get it off. He rubs with his hands, with his fists bunched up and the heels of his palms pressing, pressing and dragging. How long has he been standing in the bathroom? Why did he come in here in the first place?  </p><p>While he’s panicking and scraping the first layer of skin off his face, Murdoc begins to notice a tapping noise. Tap, taptaptap, tap. Over and over again, tapping on glass loud and regular enough to drag his attention away from his mess of a face. It isn’t coming from the door, or the painted-shut window. It’s getting faster and more insistent, like someone was trying to get his attention. But Murdoc is alone in the bathroom.</p><p>“Losing it,” he chuckles to himself, momentarily distracted. Glancing into the disgusting mirror over the equally disgusting Murdoc expects to see his face covered in goo. That wasn’t what stares back at him. “What the fuck!?”</p><p>The shock of what he sees makes him stumble backward into the half-closed door. It shuts with a slam loud enough to rattle his bones, if they weren't already shaking from shock. There’s a thing in the mirror. Sickly pale in the fluorescent lighting, face dripping with the same black goo. Its mouth is a gaping hole; no teeth, no eyes, no nose. Its hands are pressed up against the glass while one of its fingers--long and spindly with far too many joints--taps insistently. It has no hair, and its skin sort of hangs, as if it’s not connected to the muscle underneath. </p><p>Murdoc stands frozen with fear scabbling for the door handle while unable to look away from the creature in the mirror. He can’t find it, not without looking away from the mirror, not without taking his eyes off the thing. It's still just tapping, smearing black stuff on the inside of the mirror and staring at him with unseeing eye sockets, expressionless. He’s trapped.</p><p>“Murdoc!” Hearing his name makes him jerk violently. Icy fear shoots through his limbs; the monster hasn’t moved. “Murdoc open the door I need to piss!” Oh, it’s the kid. Murdoc had forgotten him. The surprise is enough to make him look away from the mirror and down to the door handle, which Stuart is jiggling desperately. </p><p>When he looks back up, not even a second later, all he sees in the mirror is himself. No black ichor, no horrible monster, just himself. Sweaty and strug out and panting like he’s just run around the block. The adrenaline begins to wear off and his legs just can’t hold him any longer. He ends up on his arse on the grimey floor. Stu’s still banging away at the door but Murdoc doesn’t move, he can’t move. Instead he covers his eyes with his hands, breathes deep, and tries his hardest to forget.</p>
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